dunno, I liked it at times, At least during the times I understood what was going on, For some reason this was a tough read, maybe it was the word play and the different narratives, I could be I wasn't in the mood, or perhaps I am not smart enough to have enjoyed this book,
Regardless of my issues I kept thinking, "I wish Everett would get out of his own way and just tell us a great story, " Which is something he is very capable of, I feel like a great story beats the writer's technical pyrotechnics any day of the week,
To my friends who've read and enjoyed this book a lot what am I missing I made a commitment to myself, several years ago, to write something on GR about every book I read but, I must say, this review is going to be a challenge.
The whole time I was reading I was wondering "what the hell am I going to say", It is, basically, about an elderly father and his son sharing stories, I'm assuming it's Percival and his father but I don't recall it saying that, It's a very confusing assortment of stories that go from one thing to another and never specifying who is saying what, This confusion, evidently, was intentional because, aboutpages into the book, Everett expressed a feigned concern for the reader, saying he realized that we may not know who is saying what but, don't worry, it's really just him, which really didn't explain anything.
He did this sort of thing a couple of other times in the book, I'm explaining all of this because, although I lack the cerebral capacity to fully grasp what he was doing, I can recognize his extraordinary talent, He has a playful sense of humor and often teases the reader in his writing, which was very apparent in this book, Also, his writing is incredible, with his sharp wit and clever twists of phrasing, I admit this book was beyond my abilities to fully grasp but I enjoyed every bit of it, It is difficult to review this book, It is a satire, certainly, containing all of the academic identifiers of a satire, but absolutely barren of even black humor, It cannot be described as a story the narrator himself, whoever that is, decries the very notion of a story, Many tales are begun, but none of them are finished, Character after character, setting after setting, is introduced, and it is worth noting how swiftly and with what a light hand the author paints each of them into vivid life.
Nonetheless, every one of them is left dangling, unfinished, incomplete, By the end of the book, the reader is left wondering whether the lack of any point is the entire brilliant theme of the text or just the ultimate literary laziness.
The book is overwhelmingly sad and dreary, and without any light of understanding in the end, reading it becomes a chore and not a pleasure, I appreciated the ability of the author, but much in the sense that one might appreciate a fashion show creation fascinating to look at, impossible to wear, and unlikely to ever be taken home.
A witty, challenging book from the everversatile Everett about fathers and sons, aging and dying, American racism, narrative structure, and more, Parts of the second half were too dense for me, but overall, I enjoyed the book and am grateful to the Tournament of Books team for introducing me to Everett a decade or so ago.
What a ride. Reading this is reading a thousand different things at the same time, I've loved all the references and I can't wait to start An Occurance at Owl Creak Bridgeit really is worth googling all the names that come up in the novel, and doing some extra research.
I've learned about Nat Turner, same as I had learned about Emmet Till in The Trees, I've also discovered blaxploitatation films because he makes the actor William Marshall a character in one of the stories within the story, His humour really is incomparable, Really difficult to talk about the book, a lot of it is very poetic, readoutloud type of paragraphs, It's an experience. I think I've missed a lot of things even though I've tried to pay a lot of attention to the writing, but my mind can't think as fast as Percival Everett.
At once intensely personal and highly abstract, filled with, for the reader, both warm recognitions and dense alienating prose, Everett's new novel is a wonderful, but utterly confounding and mystifying, tale of a father and son.
Channeling David Markson and Thomas Bernhard, Everett here takes many of his common themes and motifs but fractures and refracts them progressively throughout the novel, Because of the narrative ambiguity and unreliability it is difficult even to provide a summary of events, As near as I can tell, the novel follows the erosion of identity that occurs for both a father and son when a father's old age and dementia gets worse.
As such, the "I" or "I"'s of the book is/are radically unstable, as it/they is/are trapped in the shifting sands of its/their own deteriorating consciousnesses.
See what I mean The sense of time and conflation of memory, history, imagination and fantasy makes much of this book discomfiting and hallucinatory, Ultimately, despite engaging and radically complex characters, the focus of Everett seems to be language which becomes, in a way, a character in the book in and of itself, and how language forms and distorts reality and identity.
I'll be thinking about this novel for quite a while, Un figlio va a trovare il padre nella residenza per anziani dove è ricoverato, Lo fa di rado da quando lo ha accompagnato la prima volta, affidandolo alle cure di un debosciato manipolo di inservienti, Il padre sta scrivendo un romanzo, Il romanzo che il padre sta scrivendo è il romanzo che il figlio scriverebbe se fosse uno scrittore, Oppure è il figlio a scrivere il romanzo che il padre immagina di scrivere al posto del figlio, Reticoli di un vincolo familiare che Everett esplora con piglio provocatorio e surreale, passando attraverso un dedalo di esistenze e destini, La trama muove dalla svolta inattesa nella vita di un pittore chi
è la giovane che afferma di essere sua figlia, Transita per un medico che prende in cura il più grasso di due gemelli cosa ci fa a casa loro una collezione di macchine fotografiche, Coinvolge un cowboy solitario il cui cavallo ha una misteriosa ferita la veterinaria guarirà anche la sua solitudine, Elementi da aggiungere, tra gli altri: Nat Turner, lo schiavo ribelle, è impegnato nella biografia del suo biografo Martin Luther King ha pronunciato il suo discorso storico a braccio c'entra l'Fbi una vecchia chiave nel mazzo potrebbe aprire una porta segreta Point Dume è un buon posto da cui contemplare l'infinito anche se l'infinito non esiste.
Il risultato è una temeraria costruzione narrativa che seduce, disorienta, pungola, diverte, confermando il talento di una delle voci americane più originali e innovative dei nostri giorni, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett clearly divides opinion, but if you liked The Counterlife and Patrimony, probably my two favourite books by Philip Roth, you will love this cleverclever with narrative tricks but also moving, albeit in a fragmentary way.
Now that I've read two novels by Everett this and Erasure, he strikes me as an author who eats his cake and has it, and allows the reader the same pleasure, giving you bursts of great story and digressive postmodern contemplative moments on the nature of narrative itself.
This sort of fiction can be done badly or well here, it is done brilliantly, graywolf, takingby storm, first of all,nd, everett both shows off, and boorssp, i think intentionally as HE writes and a nonwriter his dad, but his dad is also a writer's writer, huh yes both at once writing about a writer writing, and tells a few different storylines while at it, and some bio and autobio and of course some political opinions of current events, and tv, and the weather can no one avoid the weather
so here's a short quote, percival is taking to his "dad" virgil, who's in the old folks home, practically completely paralyzed, but also writing this book i am reviewing etc etc
"What was the thing in your career that irked you the most
Funny you should have me have you ask me that question.
Strange.
Son, it was being called a postmodernist, I don't even know what the fuck that is! Some asshole tried to explain it to me once, said that my work was about itself and process and not about objective reality and life in the world.
What did you say to him
After i told him to fuck himself and the horse he rode in on, I asked him what he thought objective reality was.
Then i punched him. That's why I had to leave my job in Iowa, That's why we moved to Providence, Well, you and I did, Your mother went to Canada and married the flyboy, And the thing about your mother was that once gone, she could not look back, if I may segue in so non sequitur a manner, not that she would have become a pillar of salt or anything so horrible or fanciful or wonderful, but because in looking back she would be admitting that she was gone, that she had left something behind,.
" etc etc etc
this has some great and affecting illustrations too, but not sure sure where they come from, perhaps everett's,
.